4 ms·

To be honest, how does Amazon attract talent despite a pretty universal reputation of being a horrible place to work. I'd rather work for Microsoft or big blue

To be honest, how does Amazon attract talent despite a pretty universal reputation of being a horrible place to work. I'd rather work for Microsoft or big blue than Amazon any day.

moyta 10y ago
At least here in the states, workers rights are very poor, and Amazon will hire nearly anyone. I know that they were only offering homeless in Seattle & Bellevue nigh shift hours as a temp employee, which meant they could not live in a shelter or rehab since they would start work a few hours after the curfew. Really a great helping hand Jeff, throwin' em to the wolves!
- TheGrumpyBrit 10y ago
  That's one way to look at it, but for context, what other firms were offering work to the homeless?
  - moyta 10y ago
    Quite a few others, to the point that they put on a job fair: http://kuow.org/post/amazon-hires-homeless-workers-and-everyone-ends-disappointed http://kuow.org/post/amazon-hires-homeless-workers-and-every...
  - plandis 10y ago
    Amazon also has some undeveloped land that they have turned over to an organization that runs homeless shelters to provide housing for the years in between when the land is developed. But yes. Amazon is a terrible place to work and we are all just too dumb to quit. Oh, and we all hate homeless people, I guess.
    - moyta 10y ago
      Sure, they occasionally help out Mary's Place and the like, not disputing that. Many other companies do so too. From what I've heard from Amazon workers, from drinking with them on Cap Hill, or from my own neighbors who work there, or my Cousin who was a higher up there & left, or from my friends, on average its not a great place to work. There are good teams, but compared to what I've heard from IBM or Microsoft employees it sounds worse than working at either of them, and on par with working at Adobe Seattle over in Fremont.
slipperyp 10y ago
It's not a horrible place to work. I've worked at Microsoft and work for Amazon now. It's unavoidable that with a company the size of Amazon there will be some (maybe a lot) of bad areas to work and it's obvious that despite even the best hiring practices in the world, you'll find people winding up in a position for which they are not a good fit. There's a lot of interesting work, though, and a lot of people happy working on it. I wouldn't tell anyone it's the best place to work or that it's "better" to work than another place, but I love what I do and work with hundreds of people who (more or less) feel the same. I also know people who don't feel this way and I encourage them to move on or move out because nobody should be in a job they really dislike (and I'm aware of the incredible privilege that's reflected by my ability to say that).
duaneb 10y ago
I hear working hours are more about the team than the company.
- notyourwork 10y ago
  This is true and also true of any company Amazon's size.
mabbo 10y ago
As a software developer at Amazon, if they treated us badly, we'd all quit and have new jobs next week. Tech is different.

To be honest, how does Amazon attract talent despite a pretty universal reputation of being a horrible place to work. I'd rather work for Microsoft or big blue than Amazon any day.

moyta 10y ago

At least here in the states, workers rights are very poor, and Amazon will hire nearly anyone. I know that they were only offering homeless in Seattle & Bellevue nigh shift hours as a temp employee, which meant they could not live in a shelter or rehab since they would start work a few hours after the curfew. Really a great helping hand Jeff, throwin' em to the wolves!

TheGrumpyBrit 10y ago
That's one way to look at it, but for context, what other firms were offering work to the homeless?
- moyta 10y ago
  Quite a few others, to the point that they put on a job fair: http://kuow.org/post/amazon-hires-homeless-workers-and-everyone-ends-disappointed http://kuow.org/post/amazon-hires-homeless-workers-and-every...
- plandis 10y ago
  Amazon also has some undeveloped land that they have turned over to an organization that runs homeless shelters to provide housing for the years in between when the land is developed. But yes. Amazon is a terrible place to work and we are all just too dumb to quit. Oh, and we all hate homeless people, I guess.
  - moyta 10y ago
    Sure, they occasionally help out Mary's Place and the like, not disputing that. Many other companies do so too. From what I've heard from Amazon workers, from drinking with them on Cap Hill, or from my own neighbors who work there, or my Cousin who was a higher up there & left, or from my friends, on average its not a great place to work. There are good teams, but compared to what I've heard from IBM or Microsoft employees it sounds worse than working at either of them, and on par with working at Adobe Seattle over in Fremont.

slipperyp 10y ago

It's not a horrible place to work. I've worked at Microsoft and work for Amazon now. It's unavoidable that with a company the size of Amazon there will be some (maybe a lot) of bad areas to work and it's obvious that despite even the best hiring practices in the world, you'll find people winding up in a position for which they are not a good fit. There's a lot of interesting work, though, and a lot of people happy working on it. I wouldn't tell anyone it's the best place to work or that it's "better" to work than another place, but I love what I do and work with hundreds of people who (more or less) feel the same. I also know people who don't feel this way and I encourage them to move on or move out because nobody should be in a job they really dislike (and I'm aware of the incredible privilege that's reflected by my ability to say that).

duaneb 10y ago

I hear working hours are more about the team than the company.

notyourwork 10y ago
This is true and also true of any company Amazon's size.

mabbo 10y ago

As a software developer at Amazon, if they treated us badly, we'd all quit and have new jobs next week. Tech is different.